John Geddes

“suffering breaks us until there’s nothing left but gentleness”

“... the scarlet thread,the red clay from which we were made, runs in tiny streams through all our veins, reminding us of where we began...”

“...the monk beat me to break my spirit, incensed I knew Acquinas - angry, I knew his riddle - beauty is what is pleasing to the eye - he wasn't...”

“...nobody ever takes from the desert anything but aridity and monsters...”

“...I lost my illusions in a black rain of bitterness - now what do you see in my eyes? How can you still love me? How can I be tender? ...”

“...Moonlight possesses no alchemy to transmute good motives to base, but it does excite love magic...”

“the struggle is not with others, but within us, to do what we are called to do”

“...you disappoint me -I am the worst liar in the world - I can't hide my pain or my need so I make a bouquet of my sorrows and give them to you ...”

“...you fantasize about me reading my poems to you - it doesn't work that way - I write down everything later - living is not an after-thought...”

“I write small poems— the kind that fit on a postcard… and still can break your heart”

“...all this time I've been worshiping you - when other men wanted to kiss you, I've been offering the praise of my lips...”

“my soul has shadows – nooks and crannies where griefs, like cobwebs, collect”

“I am your stone of necessity calling up spirits from rain puddles—your Magus of words”

“...I live in Ireland every day in a drizzly dream of a Dublin walk...”

“...poetry is paying attention to life when all the world seems asleep to its beauties and truths...”

“...the answer is not in the damn blank page - it's in the days or years before and you have to dredge it up - exhume the past again ...”

“...you can't rationalize suffering - it's indeterminate - the real unknowable variable God substitutes in...”

“I will not exorcise you—I’d miss your fragrance, the soft tread of your step on the stair”

“...we have entertained ourselves with the pornography of violence and inflamed passions that might otherwise have slumbered...”

“...I've discovered why you fascinate - you keep the mystery and as Carlyle noted, Wonder is the basis of worship...”